1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to communication networks and more particularly to a method and system for automatic call monitoring in a wireless network.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet Protocol (“IP”) is an addressing protocol designed to route data traffic within a network and/or between networks. The Internet Protocol is used on many computer networks including the Internet, intranets and other networks. Internet Protocol addresses are typically assigned to “immobile” nodes on a network. An immobile node may be moved to a different computer network, but is typically associated with a static physical location.
The Mobile Internet Protocol (hereinafter “Mobile IP”) allows mobile nodes to transparently move between different Internet Protocol sub-networks (“subnets”). Request for Comments (RFC) 2002 published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) define protocols for managing mobility of mobile stations. Mobile IP is described in detail in the Internet Engineering Task Force Request for Comment 2002, C. Perkins, October 1996, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, and in “Mobile IP: The Internet Unplugged,” by J. D. Solomon, Prentice-Hall, 1998, ISBN-0-13-856246-6, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Internet Protocol addresses are typically assigned to mobile nodes based on their home Internet Protocol subnet. The home subnet is connected to an external network (e.g., the Internet or an intranet) with a “home agent” that serves as the subnet's gateway router. As is well known in the art, the gateway connects computer networks using different networking protocols or operating at different transmission capacities. Also, as is known in the art, a router translates differences between network protocols and routes data packets to an appropriate network node or network device.
When a mobile node “roams,” (i.e., dynamically changes its physical location), it periodically transmits “agent solicitation” messages to other gateway routers. A mobile node also listens for “agent advertisement” messages from other gateway routers. When a mobile node receives an agent advertisement message indicating that it is now on a foreign subnet, it registers with a “foreign agent” and its home agent. The registration involves authenticating the call with a foreign agent and a home agent authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server. The registration with the foreign agent allows the mobile node to receive data on the foreign subnet. The registration with the home agent indicates the mobile node is away from “home” (i.e., away from its home subnet).
As a result of the mobility of users to different foreign networks, it is becoming difficult to be track and troubleshoot user session/calls and connections. With the mobile IP architecture, a number of network devices are required to store the real-time status of each ongoing user session. Typically, each network component may know a part of information about a call, but does not know complete information about a call. Just locating the device upon which a user session is active can be challenging. As a result, now that mobile networks have been deployed, operators are experiencing a large degree of difficulty in handling the management of the networks.
Most of the network components in the wireless network are managed by some type of simple network management protocol (“SNMP”) interface or Management Information Base (“MIB”). The SNMP interface and MIB expose information associated with the real-time status of a mobile call connection. While most network components are managed by some form of SNMP, each network component typically has their own management systems and some of these systems are only element managers, designed to interact with only a single component. Vendors of network components may provide a set of scripts, programs, manual entry, and parsing of data files to determine those network components having information about a call, but management of the wireless network remains still challenging, requiring a lot of manual entry and parsing.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a method and system for automatic call monitoring in the wireless network. The automatic call monitoring should facilitate determining real-time information about a call.